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Paper short abstract

This presentation focuses on Palestinian families whose martyr was withheld by Israel or had been released after long waiting. These ritualcides had complex effects. Not being able to carry out rituals provoked grief, disbelief, conspiracy and tensions, but at times led to politicisation.

Paper long abstract

The term ritualcide is used to distinguish the ways violent authoritarian regimes prevent or tamper with rituals of people they rule, often occurring in tandem with genocide and politicide. One part of the Israeli politics in Palestine today can be understood as an escalating ritualcide. The Israeli necropower is increasingly preventing Palestinians from burying and in other ways caring for their dead ones as to inflict harm socially, politically and spiritually on Palestinian families and nation. This seems to have reached its extreme in Gaza where Israel returns Palestinian bodies in unmarked body bags and in unrecognizable shapes due to torture and decay, making identification and proper rituals difficult, if not impossible. However, since long, Palestinians have struggled to care for and commemorate people who have died as martyrs. Martyrs’ funerals have often been delayed or not carried out at all because the Israeli authorities refrain from releasing the bodies to mourning families. Alternatively, bodies are only released under certain conditions such as holding the funeral without a public procession and at night.

This presentation primarily builds on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in the West Bank in early 2023. I focus on some families whose martyr was still withheld by Israel or had been released after months of waiting. I discuss the complex effects of and responses to these ritualcides among my interlocutors. Not being able to carry out rituals and seeing the body provoked grief, disbelief, conspiracy and tensions within families but at times led to politicisation.